Results for 'fine-tuning, confirmation, multiverse, probability, self-locating evidence'

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  1. (1 other version)Fine-Tuning Indexical Evidence.Kenneth Boyce - manuscript
    Abstract: Proponents of the this-universe objection to fine-tuning arguments for a multiverse claim that while the multiverse hypothesis raises the probability that some universe is fine-tuned for life, it fails to raise the probability that this one is. Because that is so, they further argue, those who take the fine-tuning of this universe as evidence for the multiverse hypothesis are guilty of a probabilistic fallacy. I argue that a proper evaluation of the this-universe objection requires the (...)
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  2. Multiple Universes and Self-Locating Evidence.Yoaav Isaacs, John Hawthorne & Jeffrey Sanford Russell - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (3):241-294.
    Is the fact that our universe contains fine-tuned life evidence that we live in a multiverse? Ian Hacking and Roger White influentially argue that it is not. We approach this question through a systematic framework for self-locating epistemology. As it turns out, leading approaches to self-locating evidence agree that the fact that our own universe contains fine-tuned life indeed confirms the existence of a multiverse. This convergence is no accident: we present two (...)
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  3.  64
    Indexicality, Bayesian Background and Self-Location in Fine-Tuning Arguments for the Multiverse.Quentin Ruyant - forthcoming - Noûs.
    Our universe seems to be miraculously fine-tuned for life. Multiverse theories have been proposed as an explanation for this on the basis of probabilistic arguments, but various authors have objected that we should consider our total evidence that this universe in particular has life in our inference, which would block the argument. The debate thus crucially hinges on how Bayesian background and evidence are distinguished and on how indexical or demonstrative terms are analysed. The aim of this (...)
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  4. Bayesianism And Self-Locating Beliefs.Darren Bradley - 2007 - Dissertation, Stanford University
    How should we update our beliefs when we learn new evidence? Bayesian confirmation theory provides a widely accepted and well understood answer – we should conditionalize. But this theory has a problem with self-locating beliefs, beliefs that tell you where you are in the world, as opposed to what the world is like. To see the problem, consider your current belief that it is January. You might be absolutely, 100%, sure that it is January. But you will (...)
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  5. Four Problems about Self-Locating Belief.Darren Bradley - 2012 - Philosophical Review 121 (2):149-177.
    This article defends the Doomsday Argument, the Halfer Position in Sleeping Beauty, the Fine-Tuning Argument, and the applicability of Bayesian confirmation theory to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. It will argue that all four problems have the same structure, and it gives a unified treatment that uses simple models of the cases and no controversial assumptions about confirmation or self-locating evidence. The article will argue that the troublesome feature of all these cases is not (...)-location but selection effects. (shrink)
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  6. The Fine-Tuning Argument and the Requirement of Total Evidence.Peter Fisher Epstein - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (4):639-658.
    According to the Fine-Tuning Argument, the existence of life in our universe confirms the Multiverse Hypothesis. A standard objection to FTA is that it violates the Requirement of Total Evidence. I argue that RTE should be rejected in favor of the Predesignation Requirement, according to which, in assessing the outcome of a probabilistic process, we should only use evidence characterizable in a manner available before observing the outcome. This produces the right verdicts in some simple cases in (...)
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  7. Cartesian Knowledge and Confirmation.Joel Pust - 2007 - Journal of Philosophy 104 (6):269-289.
    Bayesian conceptions of evidence have been invoked in recent arguments regarding the existence of God, the hypothesis of multiple physical universes, and the Doomsday Argument. Philosophers writing on these topics often claim that, given a Bayesian account of evidence, our existence or something entailed by our existence (perhaps in conjunction with some background knowledge or assumption) may serve as evidence for each of us. In this paper, I argue that this widespread view is mistaken. The mere fact (...)
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  8. A Defence of Metaphysical Naturalism - Addressing the flaws in the Fine Tuning Argument.Colin Mangan - manuscript
    This paper offers a defence of metaphysical naturalism, in the context of the Fine Tuning argument. Theistic objections to the Multiverse (MV) hypothesis are considered, specifically the claim that the MV hypothesis commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy (IGF) and, as per the This Universe Objection (TUO), that it violates the Requirement of Total Evidence. It is argued that the IGF claim moved the goalposts when it comes to assessing the validity of the MV hypothesis. The Cosmic Slot Machine (...)
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  9. Self-locating Uncertainty and the Origin of Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics.Charles T. Sebens & Sean M. Carroll - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1):axw004.
    A longstanding issue in attempts to understand the Everett (Many-Worlds) approach to quantum mechanics is the origin of the Born rule: why is the probability given by the square of the amplitude? Following Vaidman, we note that observers are in a position of self-locating uncertainty during the period between the branches of the wave function splitting via decoherence and the observer registering the outcome of the measurement. In this period it is tempting to regard each branch as equiprobable, (...)
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  10. On Essentialist and Anti-Essentialist Replies to the This-Universe Objection.Kenny Boyce - forthcoming - Analysis.
    Proponents of the this-universe objection to fine-tuning arguments for a multiverse claim that while the multiverse hypothesis raises the probability that some universe is fine-tuned for life, it fails to raise the probability that this one is. Because that is so, they further argue, those who take the fine-tuning of this universe as evidence for a multiverse are guilty of a probabilistic fallacy. Some opponents of the this-universe objection contend that it turns on contentious assumptions regarding (...)
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  11. God, fine-tuning, and the problem of old evidence.Bradley Monton - 2006 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2):405-424.
    The fundamental constants that are involved in the laws of physics which describe our universe are finely-tuned for life, in the sense that if some of the constants had slightly different values life could not exist. Some people hold that this provides evidence for the existence of God. I will present a probabilistic version of this fine-tuning argument which is stronger than all other versions in the literature. Nevertheless, I will show that one can have reasonable opinions such (...)
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  12. Naturally Fine Tuned For Life - A Defence of Metaphysical Naturalism.Colin Mangan - manuscript
    The Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) is an argument put forward by proponents of theism, in which they attempt to make a case from Bayesian inference, that the [apparently] fine tuned constants of our universe is more likely given a theistic hypothesis, than a naturalistic one. Some naturalists argue that this is not the case given the Multiverse (MV) hypothesis (that our universe is one of a plurality in a broader multiverse). The MV hypothesis is rejected by theists who argue (...)
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  13. Fine‐tuning, weird sorts of atheism and evidential favouring.Tamaz Tokhadze - 2021 - Analytic Philosophy (3):1-12.
    This paper defends a novel sceptical response to the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God (FTA). According to this response, even if FTA can establish, what I call, the confirmation proposition: ‘fine-tuning confirms the God hypothesis’, there is no reason to think that a strengthening of FTA can establish the evidence-favouring proposition: ‘fine-tuning favours the God hypothesis over its competitors’. My argument is that, any criteria for the explanation of fine-tuning that permit us to (...)
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  14. Time's arrow and selflocating probability.Eddy Keming Chen - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (3):533-563.
    One of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics is what gives rise to the arrow of time. Since the fundamental dynamical laws of physics are (essentially) symmetric in time, the explanation for time's arrow must come from elsewhere. A promising explanation introduces a special cosmological initial condition, now called the Past Hypothesis: the universe started in a low-entropy state. Unfortunately, in a universe where there are many copies of us (in the distant ''past'' or the distant ''future''), (...)
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  15. Weisberg on Design: What Fine-Tuning’s Got to Do with It.Darren Bradley - 2012 - Erkenntnis 77 (3):435-438.
    Jonathan Weisberg (2010 ) argues that, given that life exists, the fact that the universe is fine-tuned for life does not confirm the design hypothesis. And if the fact that life exists confirms the design hypothesis, fine-tuning is irrelevant. So either way, fine-tuning has nothing to do with it. I will defend a design argument that survives Weisberg’s critique — the fact that life exists supports the design hypothesis, but it only does so given fine-tuning.
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  16. The fine-tuned universe and the existence of God.Man Ho Chan - 2017 - Dissertation, Hong Kong Baptist University
    Recent research in science indicates that we are living in a fine-tuned universe. Only a very small parameter space of universal fundamental constants in Physics is congenial for the existence of life. Moreover, recent studies in Biological evolution also reveal that fine-tuning did exist in the evolution. It seems that we are so lucky to exist as all universal fundamental constants and life-permitting factors really fall into such a very small life-allowing region. This problem is known as the (...)
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  17. A Reasonable Little Question: A Formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument.Luke A. Barnes - 2019 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6.
    A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would (...)-tune at all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)
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  18. Decoherence, Branching, and the Born Rule in a Mixed-State Everettian Multiverse.Eugene Y. S. Chua & Eddy Keming Chen - manuscript
    In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wave function. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable to consider a mixed-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a (mixed-state) density matrix. Here, we develop the conceptual foundations for decoherence and branching in a mixed-state multiverse, and extend the standard Everettian justifications for the Born rule to this (...)
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  19. The Fine-Tuning Argument Against the Multiverse.Kenneth Boyce & Philip Swenson - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    It is commonly argued that the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for life favors both a design hypothesis as well as a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis. The claim that the fine-tuning of this universe supports a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis has been forcefully challenged however by Ian Hacking and Roger White. In this paper we take this challenge even further by arguing that if it succeeds, then not only does the fine-tuning of this universe fail to support a (...)
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  20. πολλαχῶς ἔστι; Plato’s Neglected Ontology.Mohammad Bagher Ghomi - manuscript
    This paper aims to suggest a new approach to Plato’s theory of being in Republic V and Sophist based on the notion of difference and the being of a copy. To understand Plato’s ontology in these two dialogues we are going to suggest a theory we call Pollachos Esti; a name we took from Aristotle’s pollachos legetai both to remind the similarities of the two structures and to reach a consistent view of Plato’s ontology. Based on this theory, when Plato (...)
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  21. The multiverse doesn't affect the Anthropic argument.Jude Arnout Durieux -
    Often, the possibility of a multiverse is given as a defeater for the anthropic argument: if there are many, possibly even an infinite number of worlds, then the probability of having a life-permitting world is no longer low. This article shows that the possibility of a multiverse doesn’t defeat the anthropic argument.
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  22. The Fine-Tuning Argument and the Simulation Hypothesis.Moti Mizrahi - 2017 - Think 16 (47):93-102.
    In this paper, I propose that, in addition to the multiverse hypothesis, which is commonly taken to be an alternative explanation for fine-tuning, other than the design hypothesis, the simulation hypothesis is another explanation for fine-tuning. I then argue that the simulation hypothesis undercuts the alleged evidential connection between ‘designer’ and ‘supernatural designer of immense power and knowledge’ in much the same way that the multiverse hypothesis undercuts the alleged evidential connection between ‘fine-tuning’ and ‘fine-tuner’ (or (...)
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  23. Plato’s Metaphysical Development before Middle Period Dialogues.Mohammad Bagher Ghomi - manuscript
    Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the early and (...)
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  24. Multiple Universes and Observation Selection Effects.Darren Bradley - 2009 - American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (1):72.
    The fine-tuning argument can be used to support the Many Universe hypothesis. The Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy objection seeks to undercut the support for the Many Universe hypothesis. The objection is that although the evidence that there is life somewhere confirms Many Universes, the specific evidence that there is life in this universe does not. I will argue that the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy is not committed by the fine-tuning argument. The key issue is the procedure by which (...)
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  25. The Martingale Multiverse - How The Multiverse Accounts For This Fine Tuned Universe.Colin Mangan - manuscript
    This paper will attempt to offer a defence of to the Multiverse (MV) hypotheses, in the context of the theistic Fine Tuning Argument (FTA). It will be argued that theistic proponents of the FTA who argue that the MV hypothesis commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy (IGF) are, themselves, guilty of moving the goalposts when it comes to assessing the validity of the MV hypothesis. The Cosmic Slot Machine analogy will be used to demonstrate how the This Universe Objection (TUO), (...)
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  26. Divine Psychology and Cosmic Fine-Tuning.Miles K. Donahue - forthcoming - Religious Studies.
    After briefly outlining the fine-tuning argument (FTA), I explain how it relies crucially on the claim that it is not improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe. Against this premise stands the divine psychology objection: the contention that the probability that God would design a fine-tuned universe is inscrutable. I explore three strategies for meeting this objection: (i) denying that the FTA requires any claims about divine psychology in the first place, (ii) defining the motivation and (...)
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  27. Divine Fine-Tuning vs. Electrons in Love.Neil Sinhababu - 2017 - American Philosophical Quarterly 54 (1):89-98.
    I present a novel objection to fine-tuning arguments for God's existence. On any values of the physical constants, the psychophysical laws could be set to permit intelligent and happy beings, so the specific values of the physical constants in our world provide little evidence for God's existence. For example, even if the physical constants didn't allow carbon or any atoms larger than hydrogen, the psychophysical laws could be set so that charge is sufficient to realize romantic desire. Then (...)
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  28. The Fine-Tuning Argument Revisited.Theodore M. Drange - 2000 - Philo 3 (2):38-49.
    A version of the Fine-tuning Argument (FTA) considered in a previous essay is replaced by an improved version, which is then refuted.Advocates of FTA must proclaim that there is no world ensemble, that a great many alternatives to the physical constants of our universe are physically possible and roughly equal in probability to them, and that alternate hypothetical worlds are all, or almost all, uninteresting in comparison to our universe. But no reason has been produced to believe any of (...)
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  29. Self-locating Priors and Cosmological Measures.Frank Arntzenius & Cian Dorr - 2017 - In Khalil Chamcham, John Barrow, Simon Saunders & Joe Silk (eds.), The Philosophy of Cosmology. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 396-428.
    We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.
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  30. Fine-Tuning Arguments and Biological Design Arguments: Can the Theist Have Both?Joel Ballivian - 2019 - Religious Studies 57 (3):484-490.
    There are at least two kinds of design arguments for theism: fine-tuning arguments and biological design arguments. Dougherty and Poston (2008) have argued that the success of one requires the failure of the other, and vice versa. The reason is that the success of these arguments hinges on the following crucial probability: the probability that biological life exists somewhere in the universe given that (a) our universe is finely tuned and that (b) biological development is unguided by intelligence. According (...)
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  31. In What Sense Is the Early Universe Fine-Tuned?Sean M. Carroll - 2023 - In Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake & Eric B. Winsberg (eds.), The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s _Time and Chance_. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
    It is commonplace in discussions of modern cosmology to assert that the early universe began in a special state. Conventionally, cosmologists characterize this fine-tuning in terms of the horizon and flatness problems. I argue that the fine-tuning is real, but these problems aren't the best way to think about it: causal disconnection of separated regions isn't the real problem, and flatness isn't a problem at all. Fine-tuning is better understood in terms of a measure on the space (...)
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  32. Higher-Order Evidence and the Dynamics of Self-Location: An Accuracy-Based Argument for Calibrationism.Brett Topey - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1407-1433.
    The thesis that agents should calibrate their beliefs in the face of higher-order evidence—i.e., should adjust their first-order beliefs in response to evidence suggesting that the reasoning underlying those beliefs is faulty—is sometimes thought to be in tension with Bayesian approaches to belief update: in order to obey Bayesian norms, it’s claimed, agents must remain steadfast in the face of higher-order evidence. But I argue that this claim is incorrect. In particular, I motivate a minimal constraint on (...)
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  33. Does God exist?Ahmed Mousa - manuscript
    Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? How should we live? I am sure that whoever is reading my words now has probably, at least once, asked these existential questions [1]. Among them, which one resonates the most? Probably the first question. You are not the only one since it has occupied minds of mankind since the dawn of history. But, why does it have such significance? Simply because its answer impacts everything else including (...)
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  34. Ur-Priors, Conditionalization, and Ur-Prior Conditionalization.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2016 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 3.
    Conditionalization is a widely endorsed rule for updating one’s beliefs. But a sea of complaints have been raised about it, including worries regarding how the rule handles error correction, changing desiderata of theory choice, evidence loss, self-locating beliefs, learning about new theories, and confirmation. In light of such worries, a number of authors have suggested replacing Conditionalization with a different rule — one that appeals to what I’ll call “ur-priors”. But different authors have understood the rule in (...)
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  35. The Moral Obligation to Prioritize Research Into Deep Brain Stimulation Over Brain Lesioning Procedures for Severe Enduring Anorexia Nervosa.Jonathan Pugh, Jacinta Tan, Tipu Aziz & Rebecca J. Park - 2018 - Frontiers in Psychiatry 9:523.
    Deep Brain Stimulation is currently being investigated as an experimental treatment for patients suffering from treatment-refractory AN, with an increasing number of case reports and small-scale trials published. Although still at an exploratory and experimental stage, initial results have been promising. Despite the risks associated with an invasive neurosurgical procedure and the long-term implantation of a foreign body, DBS has a number of advantageous features for patients with SE-AN. Stimulation can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of the particular (...)
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  36. Multiple Universes and the Surprisingness of Life: A Response to Roger White's Conclusions on Design Arguments.Kevin Kinghorn - 2005 - Philosophia Christi 7 (2):483 - 490.
    In his essay, "Fine-Tuning and Multiple Universes", Roger White examines the extent to which a multiple-universe hypothesis lessens the ’surprisingness’ that our universe should be life-sustaining. White offers two main conclusions. His first conclusion -- that the existence of our world is not itself evidence for the existence of multiple universes -- is sound. However, his second conclusion is that, on the hypothesis that multiple universes exist, the further hypothesis of an intelligent designer does not lesson the surprisingness (...)
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  37. Minimizing Inaccuracy for Self-Locating Beliefs.Brian Kierland & Bradley Monton - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):384-395.
    One's inaccuracy for a proposition is defined as the squared difference between the truth value (1 or 0) of the proposition and the credence (or subjective probability, or degree of belief) assigned to the proposition. One should have the epistemic goal of minimizing the expected inaccuracies of one's credences. We show that the method of minimizing expected inaccuracy can be used to solve certain probability problems involving information loss and self-locating beliefs (where a self-locating belief of (...)
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  38. Splitting the (In)Difference: Why Fine-Tuning Supports Design.Chris Dorst & Kevin Dorst - 2022 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 11 (1):14-23.
    Given the laws of our universe, the initial conditions and cosmological constants had to be "fine-tuned" to result in life. Is this evidence for design? We argue that we should be uncertain whether an ideal agent would take it to be so—but that given such uncertainty, we should react to fine-tuning by boosting our confidence in design. The degree to which we should do so depends on our credences in controversial metaphysical issues.
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  39. Probabilistic arguments for multiple universes.Kai Draper, Paul Draper & Joel Pust - 2007 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (3):288–307.
    In this paper, we discuss three probabilistic arguments for the existence of multiple universes. First, we provide an analysis of total evidence and use that analysis to defend Roger White's "this universe" objection to a standard fine-tuning argument for multiple universes. Second, we explain why Rodney Holder's recent cosmological argument for multiple universes is unconvincing. Third, we develop a "Cartesian argument" for multiple universes. While this argument is not open to the objections previously noted, we show that, given (...)
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  40. Many Worlds, the Born Rule, and Self-Locating Uncertainty.Sean M. Carroll & Charles T. Sebens - 2013 - In Daniele C. Struppa & Jeffrey M. Tollaksen (eds.), Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story: Yakir Aharonov Festschrift. Milano: Springer. pp. 157-169.
    We provide a derivation of the Born Rule in the context of the Everett (Many-Worlds) approach to quantum mechanics. Our argument is based on the idea of self-locating uncertainty: in the period between the wave function branching via decoherence and an observer registering the outcome of the measurement, that observer can know the state of the universe precisely without knowing which branch they are on. We show that there is a uniquely rational way to apportion credence in such (...)
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  41. A classic of Bayesian confirmation theory: Paul Horwich: Probability and evidence . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 147pp, £14.99 PB. [REVIEW]Finnur Dellsén - 2017 - Metascience 26 (2):237-240.
    Book review of Paul Horwich, Probability and Evidence (Cambridge Philosophy Classics edition), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 147pp, £14.99 (paperback).
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  42. Epistemic Self-Doubt.Sherrilyn Roush - 2017 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    When we get evidence that tells us our belief-forming mechanisms may not be reliable this presents a thorny set of questions about whether and how to revise our original belief. This article analyzes aspects of the problem and a variety of approaches to its solution.
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  43. Probability and Inductive Logic.Antony Eagle - manuscript
    Reasoning from inconclusive evidence, or ‘induction’, is central to science and any applications we make of it. For that reason alone it demands the attention of philosophers of science. This Element explores the prospects of using probability theory to provide an inductive logic, a framework for representing evidential support. Constraints on the ideal evaluation of hypotheses suggest that overall support for a hypothesis is represented by its probability in light of the total evidence, and incremental support, or confirmation, (...)
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  44. Epistemic Probabilities are Degrees of Support, not Degrees of (Rational) Belief.Nevin Climenhaga - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (1):153-176.
    I argue that when we use ‘probability’ language in epistemic contexts—e.g., when we ask how probable some hypothesis is, given the evidence available to us—we are talking about degrees of support, rather than degrees of belief. The epistemic probability of A given B is the mind-independent degree to which B supports A, not the degree to which someone with B as their evidence believes A, or the degree to which someone would or should believe A if they had (...)
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  45. An Accuracy Based Approach to Higher Order Evidence.Miriam Schoenfield - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (3):690-715.
    The aim of this paper is to apply the accuracy based approach to epistemology to the case of higher order evidence: evidence that bears on the rationality of one's beliefs. I proceed in two stages. First, I show that the accuracy based framework that is standardly used to motivate rational requirements supports steadfastness—a position according to which higher order evidence should have no impact on one's doxastic attitudes towards first order propositions. The argument for this will require (...)
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  46. Balloons on a String: A Critique of Multiverse Cosmology.Bruce Gordon - 2011 - In Bruce Gordon & William A. Dembski (eds.), The nature of nature: examining the role of naturalism in science. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. pp. 558-601.
    Our examination of universal origins and fine-tuning will begin with a discussion of infl ationary scenarios grafted onto Big Bang cosmology and the proof that all infl ationary spacetimes are past-incomplete. After diverting into a lengthy critical examination of the “different physics” offered by quantum cosmologists at the past-boundary of the universe, we will proceed to dissect the inadequacies of infl ationary explanations and string-theoretic constructs in the context of three cosmological models that have received much attention: the Steinhardt-Turok (...)
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  47. A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers.Lorna Green - manuscript
    June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...)
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  48. Reply to Crupi et al.’s ‘Confirmation by Uncertain Evidence’.Franz Huber - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (2):213-215.
    Crupi et al. propose a generalization of Bayesian confirmation theory that they claim to adequately deal with confirmation by uncertain evidence. Consider a series of points of time t0, . . . , ti, . . . , tn such that the agent’s subjective probability for an atomic proposition E changes from Pr0 at t0 to . . . to Pri at ti to . . . to Prn at tn. It is understood that the agent’s subjective probabilities change (...)
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  49. Merely statistical evidence: when and why it justifies belief.Paul Silva - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (9):2639-2664.
    It is one thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is _sometimes_ insufficient for rational belief, as in typical lottery and profiling cases. It is another thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is _always_ insufficient for rational belief. Indeed, there are cases where statistical evidence plainly does justify belief. This project develops a dispositional account of the normativity of statistical evidence, where the dispositions that ground justifying statistical evidence are connected to the goals (= (...)
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  50. Statistical Inference and the Plethora of Probability Paradigms: A Principled Pluralism.Mark L. Taper, Gordon Brittan Jr & Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay - manuscript
    The major competing statistical paradigms share a common remarkable but unremarked thread: in many of their inferential applications, different probability interpretations are combined. How this plays out in different theories of inference depends on the type of question asked. We distinguish four question types: confirmation, evidence, decision, and prediction. We show that Bayesian confirmation theory mixes what are intuitively “subjective” and “objective” interpretations of probability, whereas the likelihood-based account of evidence melds three conceptions of what constitutes an “objective” (...)
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